


Hope Flies With Swallow's Wings

by arabmorgan



Series: Another Way to Fly [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Introspection, Post-Avengers (2012), Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 17:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11318325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan
Summary: Natasha, past and present, because there's no better time for thinking than when one is (almost) alone at night in the Tower.





	Hope Flies With Swallow's Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Guess what, I'm just as surprised as you are that this exists. I was browsing through my folders yesterday and I found this half-written, so I ended up finishing it somehow, yay! It's probably still really rough, so I'm sorry if it ends kind of abruptly, welp.
> 
> Anyway, you should probably read Wings Are(n't) Made to Fly before this for a whole lot more context on everything that's happening.

It was all terribly methodical. Everything that happened in the Red Room usually was.

“Do you know why you are being punished, Natalia?”

Her left wing was already extended, two coarse hands set firmly against the top edge. The feathers were barely even ruffled, her right wing held just as still against her back.

 “Yes, sir.” It was the only right answer.

She kept her eyes focused straight ahead, expression blank. She had to be careful not to clench her jaw too visibly when it happened; the handlers didn’t like it.

“You have been a disobedient child.” He spelled out her transgressions anyway, and she knew that he was watching for the slightest quiver in her outstretched, aching limb – but finally, he concluded. “The punishment will now be administered.”

The snap of her metacarpus was an oddly delicate sound, a clean break easily achieved with minimal effort.

Carefully, she got to her feet and exited the room in order to get her wing set before returning to her training exercises.

The first time, she hadn’t even been able to scream before blacking out from the pain.

She had been so very careful to be good after that, but she had cried the second time anyway.

Now, it was just another thing she had learned to endure; necessity had always been Natasha’s surest taskmaster.

The handlers were always careful with their punishments, however. Her wings were twisted with lumpy scar tissue, feathers slanting outwards at clumsy angles – although perhaps less noticeable than most given their ebony hue – but they remained fully functional, able to put on a decent enough display to any unlucky mark.

It was Clint who had damaged them beyond repair, during their first fateful meeting, but that was a closely guarded secret, more for his sake than hers.

(And really, most of the blame could be attributed to _her_ , not to him. The entire interrogation process passed uneventfully before she saw fit to mention to Phil Coulson that _just perhaps_ , her wings might need some medical attention. By then, it was simply too little, too late.)

There had been a permanent dull ache in her pinions for as long as she could remember, but her right one now twinged periodically in cold or rainy weather, especially if no one was around to help her stretch the muscles.

Whenever she soaked in a most heavenly warm bath in her ridiculously over-sized tub in the Tower, she thought it a negligible price to pay.

All the Avengers had taken turns helping her with her wings at one point or another, depending on their availability and her mood for allowing her wings to be touched. She had even developed favourites for different circumstances, something that Clint found vastly amusing.

Of course, Clint was always the first one she turned to if he was around. He had carried out her therapy so many times that she could almost allow herself to doze as he stretched first one wing out and then the other, using the right amount of force and kneading in just the right places, easing the soreness that inevitably developed after days of immobility.

Bruce’s motions were firm and confident, a doctor’s hands. He too excelled at knowing just how much to extend in order to afford her the most comfort. He soon got over his initial reticence in favour of constantly pushing her, testing her range of movement and challenging her to go further, something that she often – but not always – appreciated.

Her left wing was almost fully functional in terms of movement, but it lacked the easy grace and lightness that an undamaged pair possessed. Since there was never any call for her to extend a single wing in the slow, stiff way that she could manage, more often than not she kept it tucked up against her crooked right one.

Her right wing, however, she could only move after getting help to half-unfurl it first, getting past the locked-up joint that prevented her from moving it at all.

It didn’t bother her, this deadweight on her back – but then nothing much ever did, not after the Red Room. After everything she had seen, done and endured at an age most people were still going through their rebellious stages, her place with the Avengers almost seemed like a comfortable early retirement.

Tonight seemed to be shaping up to be an exemplary example. What with Bruce and Clint miles away with their own significant others, and now Tony and Steve holed away upstairs, the Tower was utterly still, quiet and restful in the way Natasha most enjoyed.

She padded quietly into the kitchen on the common floor, casually slotting knives back into place without much thought, a nesting instinct that Tony never failed to tease her about.

“Are you naturally aggressive, or just _really_ protective?” was something he had said to her once. _Aggressively protective_ , was what she had thought.

For all his flippant words, however, she didn’t quite mind Tony helping out with her wings. His constant commentary she could do without, but his hands were always gentle with the delicate limbs. He didn’t handle them the way he did his tools – deftly, in a way that bespoke years of experience – but with a kind of reverent wonder. If ever a touch could feel wistful, it would be Tony’s.

Steve was gentle in his own way, but more often than not he was _too_ gentle, fearing his own strength, uncertain how far her wings could stretch and extend. “Are you sure?” he often asked. “Like this?” And even if it wasn’t quite enough, she would nod, chin settled on her folded arms, because his hands were large and warm, and exceedingly good at massaging the knots that developed all too often along the edges of her pinions.

They would be good for each other, she thought, this rather unlikely pair. They both needed careful handling, and she knew first-hand that they both did their best when it came to just that.

When Thor entered the kitchen just a few minutes after her, she turned to face him with a raised brow despite her lack of surprise. “Not asleep yet?” she asked. It was, after all, almost three in the morning.

Thor gave her a quiet, slow smile, his entire being seeming to light up. “I was speaking to Jane,” he replied easily, and that was explanation enough.

Of all her teammates, Natasha was the only one left mateless now, but it wasn’t as if she had spent her life yearning for such a bond, not even as an afterthought. Perhaps Natalia had dreamed of softness and love in someone else’s arms, before it had been slowly strangled out of her, but if so, Natasha didn’t remember it.

She tilted her head ever so slightly, meeting Thor's gaze for a moment before she said, “Would you like to learn how to help me stretch my wings?”

His eyes widened, clearly recognising the gravity of her question – her _trust_ – but there was no hesitation when his answer came. “I would be honoured.”

She returned his smile, small and genuine and oddly sweet.

For the longest time, she had learned to make do with what little she had and what little she was given. What she had now was so much more than enough for her.


End file.
